Will there be enough food to go around? Rapid population growth, environmental degradation, and inadequate international food distribution raise this question. About 2 billion people lack food security—defined by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as a "state of affairs where all people at all times have access to safe and nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life" (75).

In many countries over the past two decades growth in the food supply has lagged behind population growth (75). Worldwide, the grain harvest increased about 1% annually between 1990 and 1997, a rate of growth substantially slower than the average population growth rate in the developing world, at 1.6% (21, 23, 53, 113).

In 64 of 105 developing countries studied by FAO between 1985 and 1995, food production lagged behind population growth (74). Among regions, Africa fared the worst during this period. Food production per person fell in 31 of 46 African countries (74, 95).

Moreover, water shortages are becoming constraints on development in general and on food production in particular (186, 201). While population tripled in the last century, water withdrawals grew sixfold (120, 233) (see Chapter 4).

Countries fall into three groups: (1) those that have the agricultural capacity to be self-sufficient in food production; (2) those that are not self-sufficient in food production but have enough other resources to import adequate supplies of food; and (3) those that are not self-sufficient in food production and do not have the financial resources needed to fill the gap with imports.

In the first group, the agriculturally self-sufficient countries, are some European countries plus Australia, Canada, and the United States. These countries have sufficient cropland to meet most of their own food needs now and probably for many decades to come. In fact, many of these countries produce substantial surpluses of food, which they export (73, 75). They probably could produce enough to meet the food needs of all food-deficit countries, if those countries could afford to buy the food. Countries in the second group, food importers, include Japan, Singapore, some European countries, and the oil-producing states of the Arabian Gulf.

The third group consists of the "low-income food-deficit countries," to use the term coined by FAO (75). The low-income food-deficit countries comprise most of the developing world, including nearly all of sub-Saharan Africa (75, 78) (see Table 3).

Marilyn Pfaltz

Around the world millions of children and adults do not get enough to eat. In 64 of 105 developing countries studied by the UN, food production has lagged behind population growth. About 2 billion people lack food security.

Today, about 3.8 billion people-nearly two-thirds of the world's population-live in low-income food-deficit countries. In these countries millions know hunger, malnutrition, and even starvation when harvests fail, unless other countries provide emergency food aid in time. Worldwide, about 825 million people are chronically malnourished, according to a recent estimate by FAO (78, 278) (see Figure 1).

Many low-income food-deficit countries have among the world's highest population growth rates. By 2050 about 6 billion people will live in countries that have food deficits today (see Table 3).